sf says...

"OMG, our beloved Emperor is gone! (sorta') But don't worry: the Democrats are fanning the flames of crazy, so it's just a matter of time before they run things again."

Monday, August 29

Another Obama lie goes down the memory hole

If you're just now in college you probably don't know that when Obama was trying to get congress to pass the total disaster called Obamacare, on 25 occasions he gave speeches in which he made a so-called "promise" to American voters. He said

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health insurance you can keep it."

He said that because critics were warning that it appeared that the preliminary rules of the horribly-designed program would force millions of Americans to use a different doctor than one they'd used and liked for many years. And of course millions of Americans would be forced to get new health insurance because the bastards who rammed this down your throat demanded that, for example, all new health insurance policies had to provide birth control, regardless of age. Silly shit like that.

Apparently the idea of losing a trusted doc didn't sit well with lots of folks, so the emperor realized he had to counter these potentially-fatal criticisms. Cuz if enough Dem congresswhores got enough angry letters and calls from their constituents warning that if they voted to pass that bill they'd be out of a job, they wouldn't have enough Dem votes to pass it--despite having majority control of BOTH the house and senate.

Fast-forward. Tens of millions were indeed forced to change doctors and health policies. Oooh, said the Democrats, we need to get our storm-troopers to confiscate all those thousands of copies of videos showing the great emperor looking voters right in the eye and lying through his teeth.

"What do you mean 'We can't do that'? We run this damn country, so we oughta be able to...."

Much better. Keeps voters from recalling many, many video statements that began "And I promise you this..." Let alone the sleazy POS obamacare architect Jon Gruber saying they knew this was a lie from the outset.

Earlier this year the White House also removed an alleged "Reality Check"
from its own website, which stated "Linda Douglass of the White House Office of
Health Reform debunks the myth that reform will force you out of your
current insurance plan or force you to change doctors." Of course for millions of Americans that's exactly what happened.

When your party gets caught out in a flat lie, simply make all evidence of the lie vanish, and that'll fix things. Cuz the average person has the attention span and memory of a clam. Five years from now not one American in 100 will recall the emperor promising that.

"Unisex is just such an uncomfortable and outdated word,” MU student Sterling Waldman told the Columbia Missourian. The
word, he claims, excludes people who identify as neither male nor
female.

Waldman serves as the social justice chair in MU’s student
senate, and successfully pushed for the student government to spend
$5000 of student funds on relabeling unisex bathrooms around campus.

If you're not understanding how in the hell the word "unisex" could possibly offend people who "identify as neither male nor female," join the club. The term seems as inclusive as possible--at least to rational adults. But of course, look who we're dealing with here.

So looks like simply (!) forcing every grade school, high school, university, government building and business to pony up "unisex" bathrooms wasn't enough. (And of course everyone with a functioning brain knew it wouldn't be.) Now the "social justice warriors"--a.k.a. special snowflakes--at least at this one very sad university, demand that the place spend supposedly-scarce funds on...renaming the ridiculous "gender-neutral" bathrooms to get rid of the offensive label.

As an aside, Mizzou's administration estimates it'll cost about $11,000 to re-sign all the unisex bathrooms, so if precious Sterling is to be placated the university will have to pony up the rest of the cash. And based on past history I suspect the spineless administration will cave rather than tell the SJW's to just shut the fuck up already.

"OMG! Hate-letter with white powder sent to mosque! Islamophobia!" Muslim man admits he mailed it, told to do so by Imam

Have you heard that "Islamophobia" is on the rise in the U.S?

Yeah, citizen, if you believe they Lying Media, Americans are on a rampage against the poor innocent muslims. Almost like a holy war or somethin'. Jihad, maybe? Except...it's bullshit. It's a hoax, carefully manufactured by the Lying Media to get people to support importing another 100,000 unvetted so-called "refugees"--90% of whom, oddly, instead of being widows and orphans, strangely turn out to be military-age males. Oh well...

The hoax is stoked by CAIR, and immediately picked up by the lying media. But what's this??

Justin William Bouma, 32, was charged with sending the letter to the Islamic Society of
Greater Oklahoma City on June 1.

The imam at the mosque, 3815 N St.
Clair Ave., contacted the FBI after opening it.

The powder was determined to be harmless.

Police reported that Bouma later admitted sending the “anthrax” letter to the mosque.

Now a question: Do you think this is the only fake "attack" on Muslims in the U.S? Turns out about one fake "Islamophobic" incident happens per week. You never hear about 'em because the NY Times doesn't think they're worth reporting. And you have to wonder: Why?

It's because admitting that Muslims are hoaxing the "Islamophobia" damages The Narrative: The Democrats want you to feel that Americans are mean, persecuting innocent U.S. Muslims, because that way you'll feel guilty--which will remove opposition to the emperor and Hillary continuing their policy of importing tens of thousands of unvetted Muslim "refugees" from mid-east countries.

The only outlets that ever report fake "Islamophobic attacks" are local papers and TV stations--which have no reader or viewers outside their local town.

So as far as the average American voter knows, none of it ever happened.

Liberal moonbats order Oregon to stop using coal by 2020; are convinced "renewables" will substitute

The population of Oregon is extremely liberal. And like almost all libs they're easy prey for people selling "magic bean" ideas--things like promising free health care or free college or
flying cars in every garage.

"Numbers? Why should I be concerned about those, man? Don't bother me numbers cuz we'll just let the experts deal with those little details."

And
in the extremely unlikely event that the wind occasionally fails to blow hard enough to provide the
electricity everyone demands [that's sarcasm, if you can't tell], the legislators have graciously allowed
the state's electric utilities to buy electricity from...other states.
But after 2030 the lawmakers decreed that Oregon consumers wouldn't be
allowed to buy power from any state that used any coal to make electricity.

Unfortunately
coal is the second-most economical way to make electricity. (The most
efficient is hydropower, but the environmentalists have made it
impossible to build any new dams, so that's out.) This means that the
electricity needed to replace the coal-fired capacity the legislators
are shutting down will necessarily be a lot more expensive than the
energy it's replacing.

Which means all consumers' electric bills will rise.

Hey,
that's okay, citizen. You weren't doing anything with that "extra" money
anyway, so you won't mind paying twice as much as you pay now to keep your
lights on, eh?

Meanwhile we'll ship the coal that the Oregon generating plant used to China--which
loves coal-fired power and doesn't scrub stack gas. So...lose-lose-lose.

Feds sue school system to force 'em to put ADD / ADHD students in mainstream classes

This isn't segregation by race. Rather, the school system recognized that students with certain "behavioral conditions" made it extremely difficult for the other students to learn. Indeed, sometimes a student who "acts out" commands all of a teacher's attention. So the district was trying to give special-needs students more attention, while improving learning for everyone else.

Of course this is too logical, so naturally it violates some rule, regulation or law--in this case the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which says school systems must put developmentally-challenged students in mainstream classrooms.

Most Americans were okay with the ADA forcing every business and government building to put in ramps, add braille to signs and so on. But I suspect fewer Americans thought the law would be used to force schools to put "emotionally challenged" students in the same classroom with (fairly) normal students.

Much like no one ever thought the government would try to use "Title 9" (requiring schools to have sports programs for girls) to force schools to allow men "identifying" as female to use the girls' locker room.

But here we are, eh?

It's almost as though every law, if enforced as written, has a ton of unintended consequences. Kinda makes ya wonder if anyone in congress actually reads the damn things before they pass 'em, eh?

Europe shows it's serious about reducing assaults on women

In Denmark a teenage girl in the small town of Sonderborg was sexually assaulted. She used pepper spray to try to fend off the attacker.

Sure enough, the attacker fled. Now the local government is fining the girl for using pepper spray to defend herself.

In neighboring Germany the same authorities who have invited a million so-called "refugees" to enter the country--only to see a huge rise in attacks by male Muslim "refugees" on German girls and women--have come up with an equally insane idea to prevent attacks on German women: Give girls
temporary tattoos displaying the word ‘NO!’

Oh yeah, that'll work. Apparently the bureaucrats believe the poor Muzz were assaulting women because they simply had no idea that Germany didn't allow men to sexually assault women. The authorities seem to believe the tattoos will remedy that.

Uh-huh.

Idiots. Europe and the U.S. are both being run by 'em.

But don't worry, citizen: Hillary will defend the rights of women to not be assaulted. Well, unless they were assaulted by her faabulous husband.

Wednesday, August 24

The mayor of Seattle has formed a "heroin task force." You might think he's trying to motivate his police force to bust sellers. Nope, the mayor is pushing for the city to open "safe-consumption sites" for addicts--"safe-consumption being a wonderful euphemism for places where heroin addicts can shoot up "safely." Funded by taxpayers, of course.

And a majority of the members of this task-force agree. Better yet, they propose to give users clean needles to make it even more convenient to shoot up.

And of course the mayor and his task-force will also require that the "safe-consumption" sites be ready to administer heroin-blocker drugs for users who overdose--again, funded by taxpayers (of course).

If this is a good idea, why stop there? Why not expand the program to included people who are addicted to meth, or cocaine? I mean, if the idea is good for heroin, why isn't it equally good for other drugs too? Looks like a clear case of discrimination!

Flashback: Team Obama hires actors to wear lab coats and stand behind the prez to help sell Obamacare

Back when Obama was trying to convince congress to pass Obamacare he made a series of speeches telling Americans how totally faaabulous it was gonna be.

In many of these speeches he appeared with people in white lab coats on a platform behind him. They looked like doctors, making it look like docs supported the ghastly bill.

After one speech a conservative reporter tried to interview one of the "doctors" to get the guy's opinion on the bill, but the presumed "doctor" refused to be interviewed, or even to tell the reporter his name or who he worked for.

Investigation revealed that the guys in the lab coats weren't actually doctors--indeed, they weren't in any medical field. Instead they were actors, hired to make Americans believe that doctors supported the bill.

In reality, most docs realized it would be a disaster for them. But the emperor was determined to ram the thing into law, so the idea of hiring actors to look like docs seemed perfectly normal. Who cared if it was fake?

And at that point you realize: The emperor and congressional Democrats didn't have the faintest idea of how the bill that became Obamacare would actually, y'know, work. But no matter: faking it was good enough. Cuz, you know, if it turned out to be a disaster as written they knew they could always get the courts to fix it.

This approach mimics Obama's whole "community organizer" shtick: He never had to stick around and take responsibility for terrible results. He just took the money and beat feet. Always got away with it, which led him to conclude--accurately--that it was a great way to operate. All you had to do was look like you knew what you were
doing and no one would ask tough questions--let alone hold you responsible for the poor outcome.

And as president, nothing has changed except the number of zeroes in the cost of the disaster.

Tuesday, August 23

Thanks to the emperor and Supreme Court, clear laws no longer mean what they say

In case you didn't learn this in high school, the Constitution says all laws have to be passed by congress. The president isn't allowed to write or pass laws, but is supposed to enforce the laws passed by congress. Simple. Clear.

But Obama has decided the Constitution is simply a recommendation, and has turned this clear order on its head: He now issues what amount to imperial decrees that have the force of law. Of course his handlers have told the press to call these edicts "executive memos," since "imperial decrees" might have irritated a few million voters.

The Supreme Court isn't supposed to write laws either. Nor is it supposed to re-write laws to undo bad ideas or repair flawed language. But in the age of the emperor and his minions the Supreme Court has taken a hint from the emperor and expanded its mission: Now the court has taken it on itself to not just declare unConstitutional laws unConstitutional, but to re-write parts of laws that the administration doesn't like.

You may think this is no big deal. After all, if a law is flawed in some way, what does it matter who fixes it, eh? But here's the problem: Laws are supposed to be hammered out by debate between the opposing parties. This almost always requires compromise. But if the courts take over the process, no compromise is necessary. Which produces outcomes that are uniformly crazy.

For example, you may be absolutely shocked to learn that the 2000-page nightmare known as Obamacare was not well thought out. In fact, it contained a number of clear provisions that were so wretchedly unworkable that the whole damn thing would have collapsed had the law retained them.

The emperor "resolved" some of the most objectionable provisions by simply decreeing that the startup dates specified in the bill were null and void. That is, he changed the law by decree.Cool, huh?

But opponents of the law sued the administration on one specific, clear provision before the emperor could change it: One of the main objections to the law was that by design, it supposedly forced everyone in the country to buy health insurance. This was called "the mandate." To enforce this demand the law imposed a fine (which the courts claimed was merely a "tax") on everyone who didn't buy health insurance approved by the emperor's minions.

Problem was that the actual, y'know, language of the bill (which ended up in the actual law) stated that the mandate was only to apply to states that set up a "state health exchange," and NOT to people who lived in states that opted to join the federal insurance pool instead.

Hell of a difference there, eh?

The normal solution would be for the administration to ask congress to pass a short bill to change or delete the fatally-flawed language. This type of "corrective legislation" is quite common.

But the emperor and his Democrat congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had burned their bridges with Republicans in congress by being such assholes about ramming the bill through (without a single Republican vote). And since in the 2010 mid-term elections voters had given the Republicans slim majorities in both houses for the first time in decades, Pelosi and Reid knew that to get the Republican votes to pass any corrective legislation they'd have to make significant compromises.

Since the emperor never compromises, this was a non-starter.

But no problem: The Dems had an ally in the Supreme Court.

The question of whether the penalty for not buying health insurance was to apply to everyone, or just to residents of states that set up their own "health insurance exchanges" (as the law clearly stated) wasdecided by the Supreme Court in June of 2015 (King v. Burwell). The emperor's agents told the court that the clear language of the law--that the fine was only to apply to residents of states that set up their own "exchanges"--was never what was intended. Instead they argued that the fine was intended to apply to everyone.

Big difference, eh?

They also argued that Obamacare would collapse if the law wasn't changed to make the language of the law agree with what they claimed was the intent all along.

The problem was that the actual wording of Act clearly imposed the penalty--whether called a "fine" or a "tax"--only on residents of states that had set up their own "state exchange," and not in states that had opted to join the federal insurance exchange.

And only 16 states had set up
state exchanges. Officials in the other 34 realized that trying to set up and run a state health insurance vendor was likely to be a disaster, so they chose to join the federal exchange.

Thus if the law remained as the clear, unequivocal language stated, residents of those 34 states wouldn't have to pay any fine for not buying
health insurance. This would remove the incentive to buy such insurance, since the law also forced insurance companies to sell health insurance to people even if they had a "pre-existing condition," at the same price as those who were perfectly healthy.

Needless to say, this ruined the Democrats' rosy projections for the number of people who would buy health insurance--killing the amount of projected premiums.

The emperor's agents argued--correctly--that if the court allowed the law to do what the actual language very clearly said, people in the 34 states on the federal "exchange" wouldn't buy insurance, meaning premiums would have to rise hugely--leading even more people to not buy health
insurance and throwing the system into what was termed a "death spiral."

So the administration asked the court to simply re-write the law to change the allegedly unintended language,extending the mandate to every American--despite the clear language to the contrary.

Six of the supreme court judges agreed with the government's bizarre claim that no one in congress ever intended the law to mean what it clearly said, and that this would indeed doom Obamacare. Accordingly, the court simply declared that the financial penalty applied to every American. In effect the court said "We declare that clear, unequivocal language doesn't mean what it says."

Fast-forward
to today, just over a year later. Insurers are announcing
on practically a weekly basis that they are trimming or even eliminating
their Obamacare coverage in more and more states. They give as the
reason that healthy individuals are not buying insurance under Obamacare
as expected, thus triggering a death spiral. Wait, didn't the
Supreme Court protect Obamacare against a death spiral by deciding, as
the president's lackeys argued, that the penalty--the "mandate"--applied in every
state, regardless of whether it had a state exchange or the federal
exchange? Yes. But that wasn't enough to fix it, because the same law exempted from the individual mandate a modest number of
individuals in several categories. But the ACA left the barn door wide
open with the last category: "[a]ny applicable individual who for any
month is determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services ... to
have suffered a hardship with respect to capability to obtain coverage
under a qualified health plan." That is the so-called "hardship"
exemption.

The
Obama administration then took it upon themselves to issue regulations
defining "hardship" in such expansive terms that huge swathes of the
population are exempt from the individual mandate. You heard that
right: after pleading with the Supreme Court to make sure that the
individual mandate applies nationwide, so as to avoid a death spiral,
the administration has itself triggered a death spiral by issuing
regulations exempting tens of millions from the individual mandate.

For
2015, the list of exemptions invented by the bureaucrats and said to
represent "hardship" relieving the individual from the individual
mandate includes:- homelessness,
- eviction within the past six months,
- facing eviction or foreclosure (even if not evicted yet),
- received a shutoff notice from a utility company,
- experienced domestic violence,
- death of a close family member,
- fire or flood or other disaster that caused substantial damage to your property whether natural or man-made,
- filed for bankruptcy within the past six months,
- medical expenses within the last 24 months that you couldn't afford to pay,
- unexpected increases in expenses due to caring for a family member who was ill or disabled or just aging,
- a child has no medical coverage because some other person is responsible (by court order) but has not paid,
- ineligibility for Medicaid because your state did not expand eligibility under Obamacare, or
- your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other marketplace plans are unaffordable.

Those uninsured who can't find a way to fit into one of those
categories just aren't trying. But just in case they can't, the
regulations let them make up their own category: any other hardship that
prevented them from obtaining health insurance.

The
effect of these exemptions has been to remove the threat of having to pay a fine or tax from millions of people who simply don't want to buy health insurance under
Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal summed it up: "[a]lmost 90% of the national's 30 million uninsured won't pay a
penalty...in 2016 because of a growing batch
of exemptions to the health-coverage requirements."

So the emperor got the decision he wanted from the
Supreme Court by claiming--correctly--that his signature law would collapse unless the court fixed it--but then just a couple of years later directed his lackeys to issue regulations shielding almost all
of the uninsured from the individual mandate--thus guaranteeing the very
death spiral that scared the Supreme Court into re-writing the law.

And now, as insurers are announcing their departure from
Obamacare--due to lack of participation by healthy individuals--he's
leaving the White House, leaving someone else to clean up the disaster he and his Democrat congress caused.

To
many observers the court's decision in King v. Burwell was a clear case of the court re-writing a fatally
flawed law, clearly to avoid forcing the emperor to use the time-honored
method of asking congress to amend allegedly flawed laws. All Democrat leaders knew that they couldn't use the traditional method without having to compromise, which meant the court was the way to go.

Just so we're clear, courts at all levels have been called on to resolve ambiguous language in legislation and contracts. This is uncontroversial. But the key word there is ambiguous. The language of the laughably mis-name "affordable care act" was totally clear. Yet the court changed it.

So what can we learn from all this? If you're a Democrat/liberal/"progressive" the answer is: this is great. Do it like this every time, because it lets us sneak things into the law which the clear language totally contradicted. And eventually the system will be so utterly fucked up that people will beg you to take care of 'em. Result: Perpetual Democrat control of government.If you're NOT a Democrat the answer is: don't vote for Democrats.
Closing question: How long can a nation delude itself into claiming it's a "nation of laws" when the plain language of a law can be changed--by the courts--because the president doesn't like the result?

Monday, August 22

Now for something light...

Now for something different--and funny: There's a site that dubs voices into videos. Yeah, old idea but great execution! They did one of the Democrat Convention, and it's really funny--unless you're a die-hard Hillary fan.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no citizen can be denied "life, liberty or property, without due process of law." Of course setting bail for a defendant IS "due process of law," but remember this filing is from an organization whose head--Attorney-General Loretta Lynch--was unwilling to even say that perjury is against the law! With shit like that coming from the top official, minor things like claiming that keeping possible murderers in jail if they can't post bond is unconstitutional is small potatoes.

The DOJ's brief explained that courts must consider the defendant's ability to pay.

It's likely that none of you considers this to be significant. Let me tell you why it's very critical, and what it means:

If the government's position prevails it will mean that no one can be denied bail if any person in U.S. history, accused of the same crime, was allowed to post bail. And what that means is that every person accused of a crime will simply claim they can't afford bail. Which means that if the DOJ prevails, legal systems will be forced to release them with absolutely no incentive for them to appear for trial.

Get it yet?

Do you think this is a good idea? But more generally, the position represents a total, radical change of the governing philosophy of the federal government, from "equal opportunity" to equal outcomes. If adopted, this will ensure the end of the U.S. experiment.

Now I'm totally sympathetic to the idea that if someone throws a cigarette out their car window and gets jailed, and can't afford a couple of hundred bucks of bail, and ends up sitting in the slammer til Monday, that's a huge irritation. As you can surely guess, that's not what I'm concerned about. Instead it's the absolute certainty that if the appeals court doesn't slap this down, it will have the effect I noted above.

Think about that. And your emperor won't kick 'em out. And in the very few cases where an illegal kills an American in a way the government that would get too much heat to ignore, making the administration take the rare step of deporting the killer, much of the time the killer simply strolls back in within months.

It's almost like they're giving you the finger: "You can't do shit to me. At worst you fly me home, and I come back across again. Cuz your laws are for stupid people who think they mean shit."

Oh, and SouthCom estimates that among those 331,000 illegals were 30,000 people from terrorist groups.

Oh yeah, this is gonna turn out well.

And just so you can't claim you didn't know, Hillary--the senile, corrupt military-hater says she strongly supports Emperor Obama's policies regarding leaving the southern border open to all--and refusing to deport in all but the most egregious cases.

The time left to us if we want to save this country is slipping away fast.

By the way, your emperor was caught on video claiming

"The number of people illegally crossing our southern border is at an ALL-TIME LOW."

Really, you lying sack of shit? That's not what SouthCom says. And it's not what your more-controlled Customs & Immigration "service" says either. Why would you make such a clearly false claim? Oh yeah, I got it: The stupid voters will believe anything you say, right? "Low-information voters," we call 'em. Yep.

Saturday, August 20

Three more major health insurance companies stop selling Obamacare coverage in various states

UnitedHealth is a major health insurance provider for the now-compulsory health insurance called Obamacare. This past April UnitedHealth announced it would stop selling plans on most of the so-called "exchanges."

Earlier this week a third major health insurance vendor, Aetna, which covers about 900,000 people under Obamacare, announced it was stopping operations in 11 of the 15 states in which
it currently sells policies under the law.

Well, say my liberal friends, "that's because those huge companies pay their CEO's those multimillion-dollar salaries! No wonder they can't keep going!" Yeah, well...more than a dozen nonprofit health insurance cooperatives set up
to sell health insurance under Obamacare--and created with government-guaranteed
loans--have failed entirely. Did they pay multimillion-dollar salaries?

Analysts estimate that about 2,000,000 Americans will have to find new coverage by the end of the year.

Oh wait, what am I thinking? "It was a faaabulous idea! And the only reason these 'totally unexpected' things are happening is that Republicans opposed the law all along! And had the gall to criticize its wonderfulness. And nothing could survive criticism."

A foretaste of a Hillary presidency

If you're just now 21 or so you weren't tuned in just 5 years ago when we discovered that Obama was using the Internal Revenue Service to cripple conservative political groups.

That's okay, I know you don't believe it. Illegal as hell, but of course...Democrats are allowed to do anything, break any law, without penalty. It's right there in that Con-thingy that the emperor supposedly "taught" at the U of Chicago. Anyway, google "Lois Lerner" and you'll get most of the story. Or you can go here.Or here.

My point in mentioning this is that after this story broke, not a single government employee--IRS or otherwise--was punished, or even charged with anything. Zero.

Hillary Clinton had TOP SECRET material on her unencrypted, private email server. The emperor's laughably mis-named department of "Justice" declared that the decision on whether to bring charges would be left to the head of the FBI. Who, as everyone knows, declined to charge her, claiming a) there was no intent; (not true); and b) intent is required in order to bring charges; (again, false).

Two days ago a young U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to a year in prison for improperly handling classified information. But wait--I thought the director of the f'n FBI said NO ONE would ever bring charges against someone for that sort of thing. Remember?

Now consider: Do you think the use of government to punish "opponents," and the refusal of government agencies to enforce the law against politicians and bureaucrats (i.e. they can break the law without penalty; you can't) will get worse under Hillary?

Friday, August 19

Hack reveals a major ally of the emperor asked Soros for cash to push the Iran nuke "non-treaty treaty"

How badly are you being played by Obama, "progressives" and George Soros? You have no idea, but thanks to a hacker you're about to get a hint.

Remember Obama's frantic push to make ANY sort of deal with Iran about nuclear weapons? What he and John Kerry ultimately negotiated was such an abysmally bad deal that they had to claim it wasn't even a "treaty"--even though it's an agreement between nations that is supposedly binding on the U.S. That is, it clearly IS a treaty, but they had to falsely claim it wasn't--because it was so bad they knew they'd never get the two-thirds vote of senators needed to fulfill the Constitutional requirement to "ratify" the abomination.

Ah but your emperor is smarter than you--in fact smarter than the Founding Fathers. He simply got a pliable senator to introduce a bill that would allow the thing to be passed--and arguably to bind the U.S.--without the two-thirds vote required by the Constitution! Illegal as hell, but hey...Democrat emperor, so...

Which would mute public anger or concern about it, which would help 'em get enough votes to pass the unconstitutional dodge that they ultimately used.

The Ploughshares Fund, a liberal organization cited by White
House officials as a chief architect of Obama's effort to push the Iran deal, requested the cash from Soros’s Open
Society Foundations so that it could pay off “experts and validators” praising
the administration’s diplomacy with Iran.

The money would be used to facilitate “mainstream and social media
outreach by validators along with other public and private efforts to
shape the debate in support of an agreement and continued diplomacy,”
the request states.

As just one example of how this played out, National Public Radio took money from Ploughshares
while conducting interviews with proponents of the deal. At the same time NPR cancelled interviews with the most knowledgeable congressional critics of the
agreement, sometimes at the last minute, giving a bullshit excuse for the cancellation.

Neither the Open Society Foundations nor Ploughshares returned the Beacon's requests for comment. But in classic form, after the Beacon published, an Open Society
Foundations spokesman sent the following statement:

A number of Open
Society Foundations internal documents, including strategies, work
plans, and funding requests, have been published after being removed
from an online community that served as a resource for our staff, board
members, and partners across the world. In some cases, the materials
reflect big-picture strategies over several years from within the Open
Society Foundations network, which supports human rights and the rule of
law in more than 100 countries around the world. We regret that this
incident seems to be a symptom of an aggressive crackdown on civil
society and human rights activists that is taking place globally. We
stand by our work and are proud to support all our grantees.

Ah yes...the leftist rat-bastards plot and scheme to bribe talking heads to talk up your shitty deal that intentionally gave Iran everything it wanted, in return for no meaningful concessions (no inspections by any U.S. entity, and a 28-day advance-notice for any inspection by even the corrupt U.N., to name just two crappy aspects), and yet have the gall to decry the act that exposed their plotting as "a symptom of an aggressive crackdown on civil society and human rights activists"???

This sort of random word-mashing, a pro-forma spewing of psychologically-loaded terms designed to look meaningful but which in reality are...well, totally at odds with reality...is standard operating procedure for the Left.

Isn't it odd that the Left screamed bloody murder about a court decision that allowed companies to spend money to influence politics, but then not only spends money to push their own positions but does it a) secretly; and b) while trying to undermine the Constitution?

Why the secrecy? Because they knew they were pushing a piece of crap that most Americans would rightly regard as such. And knowing that they'd taken cash from Soros to push the deal would make voters even more leery.

Okay, we'll be serious: There seems to be a huge divide between virtually all Democrats and virtually all conservatives on several crucial questions regarding Muslims, and whether they pose a threat to the western way of life. (For the moment I'm going to ignore the question of whether there's a distinction between "moderate" and "radical" Muslims.):
1. Do radical Islamists want to force all non-muslims to either convert or pay the special tax to Muslims ("the jizya")?
2. Does the koran order radical Muslims to kill any infidel who refuses to do either of those things?
3. Are radical Muslims totally, intrinsically, unalterably opposed to virtually everything about the western way of life? (women's rights, their choice of clothing, whether they can choose not to have their clitoris cut out at age ten and so on);
4. Do radical Islamists believe they are at war with the America and the west?
5. Do the widely accepted tenets of Islam result in an unusual incidence of murders of non-Muslims by Muslims?
6. Does the emperor or his goofy secretary of state or other lackeys know *better than members of ISIS* whether the members of that group are Muslims?

Try asking your Democrat/liberal friends these six questions. See if they give evasive answers, or simply refuse to answer. That'll tell you whether they're paying attention or simply drinking the Democrats' Kool-Aid.

Old Dem claim: The only classified on Hillary's server was "confidential." New admission: Actually TOP SECRET.

"The Hill" is a totally pro-Democrat-party website. A couple of weeks ago they ran a piece that said "the State Department" had revealed that Hillary's aides at State had received 4 TOP SECRET documents from her private, unencrypted email server.

Let me repeat that: Top Secret. Not just "confidential."

Wait, how can that be true? Because when FBI Director James Comey was questioned live by the House Oversight committee, members of that committee barely said a word about any *Top Secret* docs. Instead they spent almost an hour of precious, limited time discussing just 3 emails that contained two or three paragraphs that were marked with a "C" in parentheses, meaning "Confidential"--the lowest level of classified information.

One of the Democraps on the committee even said "So we're talking about just three documents out of thousands, and they were just confidential, is that right?" And Comey didn't dispute that in any detail.

The Hill also reported that the existence of Top-Secret emails on Hillary's private server was "known to the public" way back in January.

I don't think that's true. Specifically, last year a *whistle-blower* at State reportedly told investigators that he'd walked into the secure comm room at State and found Hillary's top aides--including Huma and Cheryl Mills--printing out TOP SECRET "cables" from a special, firewalled computer system at State, then *cutting off* the very large TOP SECRET markings at the top of each page and faxing them to Hillary's email account.

The whistle-blower said he told the aides that cutting off security stamps--let alone sending TOP SECRET material to an unsecured email account--were both extremely serious violations of the rules governing classified material. They responded by telling him to go away and mind his own damn business. But as far as I know this story wasn't actually "known to the public" in the sense of being confirmed.

Hard to imagine anyone seriously claiming that unconfirmed allegations equals "known to the public." Instead I suspect this was a classic Democrat/Mainstream Media op called "This isn't news cuz it's OLD." It's "You can't possibly consider this as *news* cuz it was 'known to the public' way back in [insert date months earlier]." This works regardless of whether the claim that the news was known earlier is actually true, because no one bothers to check.

If there's no record that it was *confirmed* public knowledge last January that emails containing *not* just "confidential" but "TOP SECRET" information were sent from State to Hillary's private email account by her top aides, then The Hill lied. This wouldn't be surprising.

On the other hand, her aides' cutting off the TOP SECRET markings allowed Hillary to claim "I never sent or received material that was marked classified at the time it was sent or received."

What happens when one party promises all manner of "free" stuff to their supporters? Answer: South Africa

What happens when incompetent, greedy or corrupt politicians exploit envy and racism to take over a once-great nation?

As you could probably guess, it ain't good.

And as it happens, we don't have to simply guess about that: We know exactly what happens--from the experience of... South Africa??

Yep. That nation--once the richest and most advanced in all of Africa--walked that path first, starting 20 years ago. So we can either study their experience, learn what triggered their collapse--and thus what we have to do if we wish to avoid following them down the same path, or...we can allow the usual Democratic and RINO politicians to block all efforts to take the actions necessary if we want to avoid South Africa's tragic fate.

Just so we're clear, if we don't act, the U.S. will see virtually the same results here as South Africa has suffered.

Of course you don't know what's happened in South Africa, so you don't know if what's happened there is a fate we should avoid. And the Mainstream Lying Media has been *very* careful not to tell you. So you can't be blamed for not knowing.

I'm about to change that. And you're welcome to verify everything for yourself. So you won't be able to say you didn't know what you were welcoming by supporting your Democrat masters in not acting to change the result.

So: South Africa has become a disaster, because the country's politicians--like many in other countries--told their followers that "the system" was *unfair* to 'em. They told their followers that together they could take over the country and put the allegedly "oppressed" class on top while making their alleged oppressors suffer.

They promised their followers that if the followers would help the pols take over the country, the pols would give their supporters loads of "freebies"--whether cash, services, cell phones, food--anything. This is the basis of the term "FSA"--free-shit army--and its appeal is obvious.

It's hardly surprising that millions of low-functioning people find the offer of power and "freebies" incredibly attractive. And once incompetent or corrupt politicians let this genie out of the bottle there are only 3 possible outcomes: either

people who have worked all their lives surrender and let the "oppressed" take what they have, or

those who support the class-warfare pushers eventually realize that demanding freebies absolutely ensures the eventual death of the society; or

civil war, as the people who don't want to surrender to the class-warfare pols resist having the pols take everything away from them.

Think about it: Ever hear Democrat politicians telling their supporters that our current system is totally unfair to 'em? And that as a result their followers deserve "free" shit? (Free to them, of course; they don't care who actually has to pay to provide it to 'em.)

Not surprisingly, when one party makes it a top priority to give their voters everything they need, people who don't believe work has any positive value--and thus don't want to work for a living--will stop doing so.

Of course liberals will counter that the standard of living for those on welfare is low--implying that no one would choose welfare over a job. But of course for many people the low income of welfare (in all its forms) doesn't lead them to try to find work. After all, work is hard. Far more fun to watch TV, have lunch with friends and sit on the porch drinking and getting high in the evening.

For people who don't see working for a living as particularly positive, this is a no-brainer.

So the free-shit-army invariably gets larger. Eventually the number of people working (and paying taxes) isn't enough to support the FSA, and the economy collapses.

Do you think the politicians stoking the flames of envy in the free-shit-army will suddenly realize that their scheme will destroy the nation? Not bloody likely, cupcake.

If you've worked most of your life and have a home and family you've probably started to realize that the only ways Democrats can get the freebies to give their followers are either by raising taxes on you, or diverting government spending from some other function, like defense or highways. Short answer is that they want to take what you have--whether by force or by forcing you to pay out the ass to support their supposed "freebies."

Democrats contemptuously denigrate this concern by accusing you of "fear of minorities."

If the Dems continue to fan the flames you'll be faced with one of three choices: You can either give the corrupt government everything you have that's more than the poor have. Or you can vote out politicians--in both parties--who are so morally bankrupt that they'd happily destroy the United States by supporting this scheme.

Or, if you don't feel the first two choices are likely, the only other possibility I can see is...civil war.

Let's see how well turning South Africa--once the most prosperous nation in all of Africa--over to the free-shit-army worked for South Africans. Certainly there was vast inequality of wealth in S.A, which liberals loudly proclaim is a bad thing. But isn't it interesting that you almost never see a wealthy liberal giving away his or her personal wealth, eh? Or inviting a hundred "refugees" or illegal immigrants to move into their palatial homes, eh Hillary?

But trust 'em, it's absolutely, totally *wrong* for some people to be wealthy when others are poor. The undeniable fact that rich Democrats don't give their wealth away is of course ignored. Cuz, Democrats.

South Africa was settled by Brits and "Boers"--Dutch. By 1960 it had become by far the most prosperous nation in all of Africa. Not surprisingly, blacks from all over Africa flocked to S.A. because the economy offered what Democrats and libs see as the most awful of curses: jobs.

By 1960 blacks outnumbered whites by almost ten to one, yet the government was still run by whites--which made the country a massive target for liberals in other western countries. It just wasn't *fair*, liberals argued, that the white minority ran the government. And in many ways the government certainly did oppress blacks. (And for the record I oppose actual oppression.)

So liberal western governments organized a total boycott of South Africa to pressure the white government into turning control of the country over to blacks. And the only black party at the time was the communist "African National Congress" (ANC) headed by Nelson Mandela.

Many western analysts were...um, highly skeptical that giving control of the country to the communists would work well. But just as with the momentum surrounding Obamacare here, skeptics were ignored. The liberal juggernaut said the white government must turn control over to the majority, regardless of the economic risk. And facing the disapproval of the entire western world, the white government capitulated.

The handover of control of the government to the ANC happened around 1994, and since then life in South Africa has gone straight downhill: First the new government seized thousands of white-owned farms and gave the land to their supporters. "Unexpectedly," South Africa's food production plummeted, and the country is now forced to import food. The nation's reserves of foreign currency are nearly exhausted.

Because the communist government spends far more than it grabs in tax revenue, the nation's currency has plunged to barely a tenth of its pre-handover value. The Los Angeles Times reports *official* unemployment--*not including* people who have "given up looking for work" (sound familiar?) is 27%. (And that's from a total Democrat-supporting paper, so it's virtually an admission against interest.)

Another indicator of total incompetence is electricity blackouts: Before the hand-over South Africa produced about 20 percent more electricity than it used, and it sold the surplus to neighboring nations. Today South Africa no longer produces enough electricity even to meet its own needs, and rolling blackouts are common. The only power production capacity is government-owned and totally corrupt.

Part of the problem is that a large number of residents in big cities simply refuse to pay their electric bills, since they know that the government won't cut off any of its supporters.

Even municipal water service is becoming unreliable, as the new government either didn't realize that keeping up with the needs of a fast-growing population meant *someone* would need to build more reservoirs--or far worse, simply ignored the obvious, predictable future demand because they wanted to spend the estimated cost on...something else.

Police corruption has become so bad that many white parents tell their children not to bother even reporting assaults, robberies or even rape to the cops. A murder can be witnessed by a dozen people and captured on video, yet the killer is freed before trial because the case folder mysteriously disappears from police custody.

So...can Americans learn anything from the bitter experience of SA (which is about to get *far* worse)?

Some of you can. Liberals / Democrats will probably refuse to learn because it would cause too much "cognitive dissonance." But we'll try.

You'd think it would be easy for most rational adults to understand that no matter how noble the *goals* of a program may be, if it's not soundly conceived--including the "how"--the results are inevitably terrible.

There's a great analogy if you've ever looked inside a computer. (If not it won't be useful to ya'): There's a big printed-circuit board in 'em, with lots of chips mounted on it. Imagine it's stopped working, and that you know one of the tiny joints has gotten unsoldered. (If you're not a techie, solder is a silvery metal that you melt to make a connection, like conductive glue.) You've got a soldering iron.

Whaddya think the chances are that randomly flicking molten droplets of solder onto the circuit board will fix the computer? So...great goal, poor method of achieving it--like so many ideas crammed onto a society by a command-style government.

But of course all Democrat leaders think *their* ideas are, like, totally faaabulous, so they don't pay a lot of attention to what they consider "trivial details." Like cost. Seems like their involvement usually ends with "Ooooh, this would make me look *so* good to my peers--and to voters! So we have to make the government do it!"

For example, Hillary's proposal to "make college free" for middle-class students sounds simply faabulous--unless you sit down and actually do the math.

Or take medical care. Whether you think medical care is a basic human right or not, conservatives warned voters that if congress passed a Democrat-rammed law that forced everyone in the U.S. to buy "special" health insurance (i.e. approved by the Obama administration)--and let the government give taxpayer money to people who couldn't afford the now-mandatory insurance, the result wouldn't work as the Dems claimed.

Predictably, the Dems rammed it through congress anyway--without a single Republican vote. In fact they had to use a series of parliamentary tricks to dance around clear prohibitions in the Constitution. For example, to avoid the Constitutional requirement that all revenue measures had to be introduced by the House, the Democrat leadership (Pelosi) took a bill on a totally different topic, removed EVERY WORD of its language, and inserted the language of Obamacare.

One of the main architects of Obamacare--Jon Gruber--was later caught on video (twice) bragging that the emperor's people were only able to pass it because they deliberately made the bill's language confusing, and Americans were too dumb to understand the details. Which allowed them to throw out catchy lies like "The average family will save $2500 a year."

And "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."

And "If you like your current health insurance plan you can keep it."

But hey, great idea, eh?

So...If you don't want this nation to duplicate South Africa's fate you've still got three choices. You remember what they were, right?

You probably don't. But if you don't, don't worry--everything will be just fine. Hillary will continue the faaabulous policies of our current emperor. Even if Republicans should manage to hang onto a tiny majority in congress, they can't change anything because the new queen will simply threaten a veto, and the Repubs don't remotely have enough votes to override a veto, as now. So essentially it'll be a third Obama term.

Eh, no problem, citizen. Everything's fine. "The economy is booming, job creation is great" (all this is sarcasm, in case you weren't sure), "illegal immigration is at an all-time low" and race relations are better than at any time in the past. Well at least that's what your emperor has said--all caught on video. And like, has he ever lied to you before?

BTW, I'm *not* a Trump fan--I'll readily admit this election is between the lesser of two bad choices. I just know what Hillary is. With her at the helm, chances of the nation avoiding South Africa's fate are virtually zero.

Wednesday, August 17

So tell us, Democrats: Are border walls good, or bad?

Democrats have a glaring double-standard on whether it's a good idea to build a wall at the border between two nations. For example, the U.S. spent millions to help Tunisia build a wall at that nation's border with Libya. So walls are good, right? But when Americans get sick of waves of millions of illegal aliens pouring over our southern border, suddenly a wall is just a TERRIBLE idea! One that no rational person could possibly support!

Wait, I think someone may have figured out why all the Democrats oppose building a wall to keep out illegals:

One thing about Democrats: You gotta' give 'em credit for being astonishingly...shall we say, um..."flexible," in their principles: any argument or principle is fine for now, then throw it overboard the moment it starts working against their quest for power.

Three days ago Morell wrote such a piece, which included the claim
that Trump was "not only unqualified for the job, but may well pose a
threat to our national security."

At 2:36 a.m. the Times tweeted this quote.

The
tweet--which the Times knows will reach hundreds of thousands more
voters than read the paper--failed to note one small thing: The firm
Morell works for is paid by Hillary Clinton to advise her. This was
noticed immediately by pretty much the only remaining national reporter
with integrity: Sharyl Attkisson.

Immediately after
the Times op-ed and tweet, Hillary Clinton quoted the Times in her own
tweet. Again, obviously, she didn't bother mentioning that Morell's
paycheck is partly funded by her campaign.

Slick, huh?
Just amazing how well the Dems to those little links that they know
virtually no one will either discover or care about. And it works.

Let's face it: The Democrats have perfected the art of "lying by omission" and manipulating public opinion by planting paid stories. With brilliance like that, what could go wrong?

ISIS publishes an article telling "why we hate you and why we fight you"--emperor claims they're mistaken & not Muslims

Of particular interest is their latest issue, subtitled "Breaking the Cross", which includes an article titled "Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You." It includes this passage:

You may continue spending ridiculous amounts of money to try to
prevail in an unwinnable war, or you can accept reality and recognize
that we will never stop hating you until you embrace Islam, and will
never stop fighting you until you’re ready to leave the swamp of warfare
and terrorism through the exits we provide, the very exits put forth by
our Lord for the People of the Scripture: Islam, jizyah, or – as a last
means of fleeting respite – a temporary truce.

So here is ISIS--people who are totally convinced they are authentic Muslims--saying 'we will never stop hating you and fighting you until you either convert to Islam or pay the infidel tax' --and yet the emperor, and every Democrat politician and member of the Lying Media will continue to claim that 1) ISIS isn't really Muslim; 2) Democrats know ISIS better than they know themselves, so are the final authority on the question; and 3) they don't really hate us or want to kill us--it's all just Islamophobia caused by scary stories posted on blogs by stupid Rethuglicans.

And you wonder why your emperor's government is on track to import more than 12,000 very-poorly-vetted Syrian "refugees" this year? You wonder why the New York Times reports--without citing a shred of evidence or a source--that "hate crimes" against Muslims in the U.S. are rising at a rapid rate? (Heard of a single one? Do you think if they knew of one they wouldn't run it on the damn front page, with photos?)

But don't worry, citizen. Democrats and the mainstream media always have your best interests at heart. Just ask 'em.

Young Danish girl walking her dog attacked and stoned by "immigrants," who also kick her *dog*

On a sunny Sunday she took her dog to the local park. She was surrounded by a group of cowardly, inhuman foreigners who "started asking questions." Then they started kicking her dog. Then they threw rocks at both her and the dog, then threw her to the ground and started kicking *her*.

Finally they threw her in a small pond in the park.

Such swine need to be killed--preferably in the most painful, heinous way possible. They and their swine comrades need to learn--forever--not to do this. Ever again.

I say again: Killed. Liberals will whine that this solves nothing, and in fact just makes them hate you more. What bullshit. How did World War 2 turn out?

Not taking this type of strong, unequivocal action simply reinforces the mostly-accurate belief they have that their side is stronger than the weak, scared west. Not surprisingly this leads them to think that by continuing to attack defenseless women they will intimidate and eventually defeat the cowardly west. And frankly, at this point that's a damn good bet.

Let me clearly say that I don't propose killing folks who aren't doing anything illegal. But if, say, a group of police or government employees or a camera crew goes into a "refugee" area and said "refugees" try to intimidate 'em to force 'em to leave, a group of army troops following should kill every "immigrant" who thinks doing that is a good idea. They're stupid and thuggish but they're not crazy.

The poor Danish girl who couldn't even walk her dog in her local park without being kicked and attacked could be your daughter. In fact this WILL BE your daughter if you goofy people don't stop electing politicians who have no concept of reality but are instead devoted to "virtue-signalling"--ordering policies that make other elites think highly of them but that result in lots of innocent citizens getting attacked or raped or killed.

Sunday, August 7

I haven't watched whatever passes for TV network "news" for years. Total waste of time. So I missed the latest horrible Trump scandal. Fortunately a couple of liberal friends told me about it: According to what they understood from MSNBC and CNN, Trump supposedly said he wanted Russia to hack hillary's private email server to find the emails she deleted.

Think back: Is this also your understanding of what happened? I'm betting it is.

Now, Trump is infamous for saying provocative things, so I wasn't terribly surprised to hear this--and then the totally predictable avalanche of outrage from the Democrat-loving Lying Media about how it was...absolutely outrageous!...that anyone would ask the Russians--a hostile foreign nation!--to actually *break into a presidential candidate's private email account!* OMG! Treason!

But knowing how the Lying Media constantly lies to damn Republicans and protect Democrats, I took a closer look. And sure enough, here's what Trump actually, y'know, *said:*

Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press… By the way they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 e-mails. I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 e-mails that she lost and deleted because you’d see some beauties there."

Without signing on to the Trump bandwagon, he clearly didn't ask the Russians to hack poor, innnocent Hillary's email. What he said was that he thought the Russians had *already* hacked her notoriously unsecure private server, and hoped they would be able to find the 33,000 emails she deleted--after she knew she was being investigated.

Many computer experts believe--as the FBI director suggested--that a competent, aggressive foreign intelligence service likely hacked Clinton’s email server as soon as they learned about it.

I'm not sure how many Lying Media outlets reported Trump's exact words and how many just went with their scary mis-translation of what they wanted voters to believe he said. I'll try to pull some media quotes when I get the time. But for now, can you imagine how the Dem-loving media would have handled the story if a Democrat had said the same thing? They would have gone to great lengths to explain that she *really wasn't* asking a hostile power to hack...et cetera.

They would have explained that in any case "it was widely known" that it wouldn't be possible to hack the server in question because it had now been completely erased and was no longer connected to anything. And you know it.

Unfortunately very few Democrats--especially the "low-information voters" who comprise the party's base--will grasp the distinction between what Trump actually said and their version: "I'd like to ask Russia to hack into her email."

By contrast, top liberals will just smile and congratulate their media comrades for yet another job well done.

Why more newspapers and networks are eliminating the ability of readers to post comments on their sites

The Internet is a very dangerous critter. The biggest reason is that it's made it possible for "regular people" to get information from sources outside of a couple of wire services and 3 alphabet TV networks. This makes it far harder for governments to control what regular citizens see or read.

For people who run corrupt, lawless governments--like ours--it's easy to see how allowing citizens to get information from uncontrolled sources is dangerous (to the politicians). People might start to put two and two together.

But a second, more subtle factor is just as dangerous: The Net vastly increases the ability of readers to comment on controversial events or government actions or decrees. On many blogs a big event will trigger a thousand comments, many of which are more insightful than the original article.

The ability of readers to comment on an event also gives everyone an instant sense of how that blog's readers feel about whatever just happened. Finally, comments also let readers who may have thought almost no one agreed with their viewpoint--because all the polls published by the Mainstream Media claimed no one agreed with them, for example--discover that a lot of Americans actually agree with them.

The elites hate this because one of the ways the elites kill ideas or theories they don't like is to make people who believe those things believe no one else agrees with 'em. Thus if you run a social media giant and can down-vote ideas Democrats don't like, those ideas will have a far harder time getting traction. Thus the idea of TV shows featuring strong, smart,
capable men; the crucial importance of traditional families, and the importance of personal responsibility (individuals making good choices) are "uncool."

Conversely, both the Mainstream Media and social media relentlessly push the ideas they like, which moves people to think those ideas are trendy. Thus gay characters on sitcoms, notions that illegal immigrants haven't really broken any laws, and shows that stress how "99 percent of all scientists agree" that human actions cause the majority of global warming, are cool.

You may have heard that Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other social media have been removing from their "trending now" lists any stories or tweets favorable to conservatives or damaging to Democrats. (And despite their admissions and promises to stop doing that, if you think they're not still doing it you're too stupid to breathe.)

Those social media sites are also quick to ban conservative commenters. If you can keep a message you don't like from being read/heard, liberals see that as a win, right? Regular blogs, like HuffPo, are also quick to ban even civil commenters if they post comments critical of the liberal/Democrat party line.

Before the internet, the only easily-accessible way for readers to push back at the liberal media was Letters to the Editor. Thus it was easy for the Democrat-run media to control public perceptions by printing far more pro-Democrat letters than conservative ones, or by printing letters from crazy conservatives. Easy.

But when the internet started giving every reader the chance to post a visible comment without editorial filtering, a huge tool for Democrat control of public opinion vanished. Suddenly the playing field was a lot more level. While on-line comments could be (and often are) "moderated" (i.e. only appear after being approved by an editor) this has often fueled lots of negative publicity: a commenter whose comment wasn't approved would post the exact same comment on another site and say "Here's a comment I tried to post at X site. It wasn't offensive, yet they deleted it. The fix is in!"

This still happens at many sites, but increasingly on-line newspapers have simply decided not to allow *any* comments on their sites. The "official reason" for the policy change was usually that some comments were hurting the delicate feee-wings of certain special snowflakes. Makin' 'em feel as unsafe as college students at an Ann Coulter lecture. But there's a lot of skepticism about the truth of that excuse.

In any case, the people who want to shape public opinion see eliminating comments as a cheap, easy victory.

As many people have noticed, most humans are herd animals: Most of us--even if we don't recognize it--tend to go with whatever the majority is doing or buying or saying or believing, because most of us want to Belong.

Since every "social media" organ, and virtually every alphabet network and newspaper in the U.S, supports Democrats, the solution (for Democrats) is obvious: Shape public opinion by controlling what the public can see and hear.

So let me say: Go for it, Democrats. Stamp out those ideas (comments) that skewer your party! Hell, why not get the IRS to make it impossible for conservative organizations to get tax-exempt status? Exercise that total control over ideas and speech that you so want to wield. Because ensuring that only Democrat ideas reach the public will hurt your opponents and thus win your party more elections, and more power.

And in the short run that will almost certainly work as Democrats intend--which is why they'll keep doing it. In fact they'll keep doing it long after everyone else realizes it's a road that leads to destruction of the nation--at least the nation most of have known and (generally) loved.

So for major papers, eliminating comments controls the discussion, and thus shapes public opinion. But two phenomena suggest there may be a different result in the long run: First, I suspect a lot of people find it irritating when some doofus on a TV network--making six figures--makes an obviously false statement. If the site allows comments, it's fun to see some commenter demolish doofus in four sentences, with examples. David versus Goliath. Most people love that.

Second: If you happen to detect some hole in a story that no one else seems to have noticed, or a missed conclusion, or something similar, and you dash off a comment that gets people to say "Whoa! How did we all miss that?", it's really easy to get hooked. That kind of feedback, while rare, is addicting.

Either way, when sites stop allowing comments, a lot of people simply stop going there. Eventually readers see--correctly--that that site only allows one point of view. So they vote with their feet.

So allow me to propose a behavioral law: The closer a country gets to collapse, the more mainstream media on-line sites will end the policy of publishing reader comments.

"Media coordination status report"

Media coordination status report

To all outlets:
Strategy of minimizing seriousness of attacks on civilians by followers of Islam (a.k.a. "extremists"), and characterizing all such attacks as due to mentally-ill "lone-wolves" appears to be working, as both our president's and our candidate's approval ratings are up ten points in the past two weeks.

Democrat-controlled California legislature does it again

On August 1st the Democrat-controlled legislature of California passed a resolution declaring August...well, let's see if you can guess correctly. Did the resolution declare *"Celebrate gay Boy Scouts month" *"Non-elite people should stop driving to stop global warming month" *"This month's temperatures prove global warming is real and killing the planet" month; *"America needs a female president month"; or *"Muslim appreciation and awareness month."

Actually as nutty as politicians are, and Cali pols in particular, it's kinda hard to tell. But if you guessed "Muslim appreciation and awareness month" you're very perceptive.

What happened was the Muslim lobbying group CAIR pointed out that since the state's legislators had declared "appreciation months" for Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians and Jews, then simple equal treatment--not to mention that phrase in that Con-something that says government can't favor any one religion--demanded that the state dedicate a month to the appreciation of Muslims. [1][2]

What? Did someone say they didn't think California's Democrat-run legislature had resolved to give Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews or any other religion its own "appreciation month"??

But...but...the talking-point memo released by CAIR *said* "equality" was the most important principle in the U.S. But wait...If no other religion has an official "appreciation month" designated by the Cali legislature, what could CAIR have meant when they cited "equality" as having any bearing on the matter?

Wait, I know: The Democrat legislature wanted to "appreciate" Muslims because after the two "lone-wolf" murderers in San Bernardino killed 14 unarmed people in a government building--an act having nothing whatsoever to do with Islam--350 of the 500 mosques in the state pledged to help law enforcement identify any Muslims who might be planning "lone-wolf" attacks in the future before they could carry out those killings.

Oh, wait...you say that didn't happen either? But in that case, what in the world would impel the Dems in the legislature to declare "Muslim appreciation month?"

Okay, if you said "shameless political ploy to win Muslim votes" you win a margarita.

If you said "shameless attempt to appease people who have formally declared that their religion requires them to eventually kill or convert to their religion everyone who isn't a member of their religion" you win *two* margaritas.

And if you said "See if the Democrat legislator who introduced the resolution has made any large cash deposits in the last few weeks" you win *three* margaritas.

Democrats. Just when you think they couldn't get any more stupid, they surprise you. ----Footnotes:1. Before my liberal attorney sister pounces, I'm well aware that the Constitution supposedly restricts the acts of the federal government only (or at least it used to). However, dozens (if not hundreds) of courts have ruled that any state law that restricts any federally recognized principle is null and void. It's how the feds can and do void state laws that want to make people who want to vote show photo ID proving they are who they claim to be--and thus arguably eligible to vote. The resolution by Cali Democrats would seem on its face to fail the "favor no religion" test.

2. It would be interesting to see how the empire would respond if a California resident were to file suit seeking to have the "resolution" thrown out on the grounds that it violates the Constitutional provision against government favoring one religion over another. Oh wait, I know: The courts would rule that the individual lacks "standing" to sue. It's the universal "shoo-fly" excuse if a court doesn't want to actually hear a lawsuit that might make things...um...difficult for the government.
Thus the courts have used this to argue that even a presidential candidate for a major party "lacks standing" to try to have the court examine whether another candidate is eligible to hold the office of president. True story.

About Me

Ex-AF pilot. While airliners are very safe, flying a single-pilot jet can be extremely demanding, especially in bad weather. It's a *huge* tribute to engineers that today's commercial jetliners are so amazingly safe!